Would still need to lose about 100 pounds though. We feel your pain on that one. Morning joe starts right now. All right. Good morning, everyone. Its friday, july 19th. Happy friday, everybody. Welcome to morning joe. With us on set, we have former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner, good day to have you on. Hello, ratner. Unhappy circumstances. Terrible circumstances but perhaps youll help us understand where we go from here. Washington, senior Political Editor and White House Correspondent for the huffington post, sam stein. And msnbc political analyst and former chairman of the Republican National committee, Michael Steele. Willie geist and Brian Shactman at the table as well. Joe, couple things coming up. First of all, dont get Vladimir Putin mad. Front page of the New York Times no. He will kill you. Head of the opposition. Or arrest you and cause protests. That have somebody else kill you. With liz cheney, running for senate in wyoming, you know, dont call her a bored housewife because im going to have to defend her. You know see, thats no. And you see, you if you say a guys confused. Right. I have problems with that. I understand you do. Im telling you, though, im telling you, that will not impact voters as much as insulting somebody for being at home with their children and taking care of them. Yeah. I got to say in the insult wars right now, advantage liz. There are a lot of women at home taking care of their children and the phrase bored housewife i would say is probably among the most insensitive and insulting you can receive. Also coming up, well talk about that. Willie, netflix making history. The emmy nominations came out yesterday. 14 all together. Nine for house of card. Arrested development. They are the story of the emmys. When those nominations came out yesterday. Well get to that. First well start in detroit where after years of decline, city officials have officially filed for bankruptcy protection. Known as the birth place of the American Auto industry, and the iconic Motown Records, the city has racked up at least 18 billion in debt. Listing more than 100,000 creditors. It now becomes the largest city in u. S. History to file for chapter 9. Its a stunning, but not entirely surprising, turn of events. Detroits population soared during the rise of the Auto Industry in the 20th century, peaking at around 1. 8 million back in 1950. Now, the population has fallen to just over 700,000. A 26 plunge in the past decade. The Unemployment Rate is over 18 and the city never really recovered from the housing crisis. Today, close to 80,000 homes have been abandoned and the median value of the ones still occupied is below 40,000. Crime is also a major problem in detroit as the citys homicide rate is at historically high levels ranking among americas dangerous cities for more than 20 years. The future of detroit remains far from certain with no clear road map to how the motor city survives. The filing begins a threemonth process to determine if the city even qualifies for chapter 9 protection and who would be eligible for settlement funds. Theres no doubt the move will impact the 9500 City Employees and 20,000 retirees, many of whom could face cuts to pensions and other city programs. Joe, weve been watching this story for several years now, from a number of different angles. Im not surprised, but i think theres so many questions now. There really are. And, of course, the great tragedy of detroit is that, you know, in the middle of last century around 1950, it was the wealthiest city in america. The most powerful city on the face of the earth. It represented, really, what was good about american industry going back to henry ford and the revolution he created in a farm field. You know, be what was good for General Motors was good for america. That was a famous phrase. It was the truth too. Boy, theres been such a downfall and a downfall starting in the mid 60s and lets go to steve ratner here, because, steve, youve got people on the left that are going to blame lets say the reagan era and the coldness when it came to a series of cuts. Youve got conservatives that talk about all of the Pension Plans and just how excessive they are. The fact that theres a living wage there, quote living wage, thats higher than the regular wage and that theres one regulation after another after another thats brought detroit down. At the end of the day, steve, arent those just ideological arguments and isnt this really just about an Auto Industry that moved overseas . It is in part, joe, and youre right to trace the decline of detroit going back a ways. Whats interesting about the other bankruptcies that you showed a minute ago, is they all had exogenous effects in a way to their bankruptcy. Jefferson county in alabama had a bad financing, they were in some ways misled by their bankers. The two in california reflect proposition 13 and all the cutbacks in state aid that resulted from. Detroit sort of stands on its own both in its size and the reasons for its bankruptcy. Whats interesting about detroit, is that the very factors that took detroit in 1920 to the fourth most populace city in america, are the same factors that brought it to its demise which is the automobile, in the sense that what detroit suffered from probably greater extent than almost any American City was declining population. And population are like customers. Theyre your revenue base, your source of income to run your city. If you go back to 1950, detroit had over 1. 8 million residents in it. It was the fourth largest city as you talked about. You can see it here on this chart. From 1950 all the way to today, without necessarily any sign of it abating, the population has just gone down, down, down to a little over 700,000 at the moment. And steve, what was so surprising about detroit are the genius of mhenry ford and it wa extraordinary business move on his part, early on in the companys history, he decided he was going to lower the cost of the car, he was going to raise wages, because he said he wanted to make it that everybody on the Assembly Line could buy a car. Well, when you Start Talking about the citys population going down because the jobs at gm and ford were going down, it just became this terrible cycle that fed on itself. Less workers, less people with money to do what henry ford said they would do, go out and buy the family car at the factory where they made it. But it was also a second problem which is emblematic of america, flight from the cities. Detroit became afflicted by some of the same factors that affect every city. The automobile ironically was somewhat responsible for detroits demise because it allowed people to commute. They moved out. They moved out to the cities outside of detroit and then you had urban blytight and the city becoming less safe. Before it was over if you go to detroit as i have done many times you will see a shelf a city. You will see whole blocks which there are one or two houses that are left still occupancy. When i took over the auto job back in january of 2009, you know what the average price of a house sold that month in detroit was . 9,000. Very close. 5,000. You could buy a house in detroit for 5,000 because everybody wanted to get out. And that led to terrible city finances. Willie . This is obviously a very emotional for not just for detroit, but also for the country. As joe said, this wasnt just the beating heart of the Auto Industry but as the wall street journal puts it this morning 100 years ago it was silicon valley, where all the technology and ideas were coming out of. Also, music. A huge Cultural Center not just of the United States but of the world. Thats why this hurts so many people, not just there, but around the country. So the next question is, steve, i guess, what does it mean for an entire u. S. City to go bankrupt . What happens now . Well, first, as joe alluded to, the city utterly mismanaged its finances and ran persistent deficits all the way through. I will acknowledge it is hard to run a business when your customers are getting fewer and fewer every year, but nonetheless they ran 100 million plus deficits every year. They piled up as mika said, 16 or 17 billion in obligations, a little over half of that in debt, and the rest in pensions for city workers and in Health Care Benefits for city workers and now they have to face the music. What does it mean for detroit . Nobody quite knows. Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which is what they filed under, is a very long, protracted practice. Theyre twice the size of any city which ever used it before, which was stockton, california. Looking at it from a financial perspective the only way to make the numbers work, i say may be to make the numbers work, massive cuts in the debt and more importantly significant changes in pensions and in Health Care Benefits and so personally, i think this is a place where governments going to have to step in. That will be interesting to see that play out. Well talk about this throughout the show, what it means for city workers in detroit and retirees but also the president meant to prevent this. He vowed to prevent this. What this means on a broader perspective as well look at. Couple other big stories to get to. The fallout from the Rolling Stone cover controversy conditions. In response to what may have been called a glamourized even rock star treatment of dzhokhar tsarnaev, a photographer with the Massachusetts State Police released a series of photos showing the alleged bomber in a decidedly less glamorous state. The previously unseen images show the accused killer with a red laser site trained on his head as he surrendered following a citywide manhunt. The graphic pictures were given to boston magazine by Sergeant Sean murphy. He wrote that the Rolling Stone cover was an insult to anyone who ever wore a uniform. Adding, quote, photography is very simple, its very basic. It brings us back to the cave. An image like this on the cover of Rolling Stone we see it instantly as being wrong. What Rolling Stone did was wrong. This guy is evil. This is the real boston bomber. Not someone fluffed and buffed for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The editor of boston magazine tweeted that murphy, joe, has since been relieved of duty and stripped of his gun, badge and computer. And nbc news is still working to independently verify that reporting, but fallout from the fallout of the Rolling Stone cover. Yeah. Well, willie, i mean you can certainly understand why this Police Officer would want to do that and actually show and i think this is very important for any idiot that would be looking at the Rolling Stone cover deciding theyre going to go out in a blaze of glory and get a glamour Rolling Stone cover, this shows the other side of it and im kind of glad the cop did it. Yeah. Sergeant murphy may have been relieved of his post and status will be reviewed according to that report, but i think he spoke for a lot of people in that Police Department and the city of boston when he put out that counter image. This is obviously this cover of Rolling Stone has really struck a chord across the country but obviously particularly in boston. Almost universally across the board up there, people are have viewed it negatively and think its an insult. I dont know if everyone has read the article but i think a lot of people up there back what Sergeant Murphy did yesterday. I think its a tough one. He obviously broke the rules within the state police. I dont but the point that hes trying to make adds to the conversation significantly. Well follow that as well. Lets go to politics, shall we, joe, and liz cheney. One potential obstacle in her bid for u. S. Senate in wyoming can be the impression she only moved to the state to run for political office. Veteran republican strategist ed rollins tells the hill, quote, this. I like liz, ive been a longtime friend of her fathers but it will be portrayed as theyve been away from the state a long time, a housewife whos kind of bored, who moved back to wyoming after a long time to run for the senate. Rollins went on to say, quote, unfortunately for liz thats not a state like california or new york where you can carpetbag very easily. He did add later that he liked both candidates, but wished she was running somewhere else. When asked for comment miss cheney told the hill, quote, i am a fourth generation wyomingite my family first came here in 1825 walking the mormon trail in search of religious freedom. My great grandfather settled here in 1907. Wyoming has always been home. There you go. Why do you do that . And shes not a bored housewife. Michael steele hey. This race may get good. This may be a good one. Liz talking about new generation of leadership and then talking about how senator enzi must just have been confused, you know, while he was, you know, dipping his crackers in his milk to make it soft enough for him to be able to chew down and digest them easily. And now we have ed rollins coming back saying that shes a bored housewife and a carpetbagger. Going to be a lot of back and forths here, arent there . There are. And joe, its amazing that 24 hours out of the gate, both sides have stepped in it as you very well illustrated. Liz cheney wit her, you know, ageist comment and ed rollins with his sexist comment about liz. And but at the end of the day, i mean, rollins was making an underlying point, which is going to be something to watch, is that the people of wyoming are very sensitive about carpetbagging and why the issue has been raised already. And the fact that, you know, you know, liz is saying, you know, im a wyomingite, thats great, but you havent lived there. You have not been a part of that community or culture for ever. There is that aspect of it that will get played out. I think both sides have kind of stepped in it early and if this portends how this campaign is going to be, its going to be a doozy. Sam stein . Ed rollins is a good guy and smart analyst. I bet he wishes he could have that back. Oh, yeah. Whats the reaction inside the state of wyoming. Were hearing a lot of beltsway talk about liz cheney. Michael enzi is a popular senator. Whats the reaction . Having spent a straight week in wyoming, willie, i have no idea what the reaction is in the state of wyoming. Do you not have access to televisions or telephones . Ive called all 570,000 people. It took a while. With ed rollins comment i dont get why carpetbagging in wyoming is harder to do than say in new york. Well put that aside. I think its an absurd attack on liz cheney. She obviously has roots to the state of wyoming. Her father is clearly popular there. Hes been there. Doesnt make sense to me. I think it was a stupid comment. Im sure he would want to take it back for the sexist undertones obviously. What ive been surprised about, maybe joe could add here, how little how poor a reception liz cheney has had within republican circles to her entrance into the race. That might be because theres a sitting senator there, perhaps they thought it was not the right time, she was talking out of turn, but i have a sense its a little deeper than that, that people arent exactly enamored with the cheney name within the Republican Party. Joe, add to that question, the fact that it did seem a little awkward at first because theres a sitting senator whos popular in position there. Do you think liz called up ed rollins and said could you do me a favor . Could you call me a bored housewife and, you know because its going to look. That is just the last thing in the world that you would want to do if you you are so cynical. No, im not. You know im right. You sound like your father. Really . You know what i really think. Strategy. Anyway so anyway, whenever i start doing my dr. Brzezinski says, you are making me sound like a rabbi, so anyway, you know, shes doing something that the establishment hates. Shes taking on an incumbent, a wellliked incumbent and the party doesnt like when that happens. They know, you know, the Republican Party, if you listen to my good friend, nate silver, the Republican Party has a good chance of taking over the United States senate next year and the last thing you want are resources being wasted in a state like wyoming in a primary that could be nailed down. So, yeah, shes she is going to get dinged from the left and the right and the center and shes going to be hit. What she is doing is really at the end of the day, thats the toughest thing to do in american politics, take on an established, wellliked incumbent inside your own political party. And so yeah, i would be surprised if the republican establishment were nice to her. Again, like i said yesterday, i think whats going to be really fascinating is watching rand paul going out there and working aggressively to beat liz cheney because hes believes in a more limited Foreign Policy and she, of course, is fairly aggressive on the neocon front just like her father. Finally this block, before we get to bill karins and the heat wave, netflix is shaking up the emmy awards grabbing 14 nominations. House of cards received nine, including one for outstanding drama series. But not everyone would have predicted the companys success. Listen to this, back in 2010 the ceo of time warner said of net flicks, quote, its a little bit like, is the Albanian Army going to take over the world . I dont think so. At 8 to 10, it doesnt have the economics to support h